Cape Coast / Elmina

Last Tuesday Michael’s father, Perry, and Perry’s sister, Karen came to visit!

They stayed at the illustrious Hotel Obama, which was complete with giant, cheesy portraits of Obama and his family in the lobby. Each room had a different name. Among the room names were: 1865, Chicago, Hawaii and Biden. Perry and Karen spent Tuesday through Thursday touring various sights around Accra and of course absorbing the culture. Tuesday night we ate dinner at Monsoon, an upscale restaurant in Osu, Accra’s nightlife district. The food was delicious! Perry ordered crocodile tail, which tasted like a meaty lobster.

Friday morning Michael, Catherine, Katy and I accompanied Karen and Perry to Cape Coast. We arrived at the guest house in the early afternoon (we had air conditioning in the rooms!!) and we walked into the city to find lunch. We were directed to a restaurant next door to the Cape Coast Castle and dined overlooking the rocky ocean front. Following dinner we scrambled up the rocky ridge next to the ocean, watched waves and of course took pictures. Later that night we caught the tail end of the U 20 Ghana vs. Brazil World Cup final in the lobby of the guest house. Everyone watching the game was extremely animated and cheering wildly. Ghana upset powerhouse Brazil in penalty kicks and as soon as the winning goal was scored, the town erupted. I can only compare the noise to campus / Franklin St. when we won the national championship. We walked out of the guest house and could hear everyone in the town screaming. We decided to head into town to grab dinner and caught cabs. Immediately upon exiting the guest house, we were engulfed in a crowd of Ghanaians cheering, singing and running in the streets. Perry loved the excitement and spent a considerable amount of time hanging out of the window yelling “Obrouni Party!!” (white person party). We stopped at a bar / restaurant in the center of the city and as soon as we exited the cabs, realized we would not be eating a quiet dinner. We watched the town explode for a while, attempting to snap pictures of the madness. A girl who was about eight years old thought Katy had taken a picture of her and told Katy she would “sock her” and bore her tiny fist at us. Inside the bar, people were going crazy. Music was blaring and people waved Ghana flags and soccer balls. We stayed for a while and danced and hung out with all of the locals.

The next morning we headed to the Cape Coast Castle. The castle is an imposing structure, a white stone fortress used during the Trans-Atlantic slave trade to house up to thousands of slaves, sometimes for up to a year, to be placed on ships. The tour began with an explanation of slavery in pre-colonial Africa. Prisoners of war and criminals were often taken as slaves in various villages. However, unlike the treatment of slaves in the Americas, slaves in Africa lived in the community, were able to work off their debts and often married into the community and had fairly normal lives. Later during the tour we were led into the holding cells where native Africans were kept. The dungeons were haunting and I can’t possibly imagine living in the squalid conditions. The huge cells were pitch dark with one tiny window per cell providing the only light. It was chilling thinking about all of the people who had died in the cells, and I can’t imagine the trauma experienced by those who survived. Hundreds of people were forced into each cell, left to live for months in these rooms with stone floors, hardly any light and no sanitation facilities to speak of. I know I can never imagine even a fraction of what these people went through, but even standing in the cells was an unforgettable and disturbing experience.

Post Cape Coast Castle tour we returned to the guest house to collect our things and caught cabs to Elmina, another coastal town. Elmina is a fishing town and is home to West Africa’s largest fish market. Immediately upon entering the town, the fish smell was perhaps the strongest and most repugnant smell I’ve ever experienced. The main road was stuffed with row after row of seemingly unending supplies of fish. I can only imagine how the smell of fish must permanently permeate the pores of the townspeople and how immune the locals must be to the stench. We finally arrived at the resort in the afternoon. Pulling into the resort illustrated to me how much I’ve changed since being here. The lush, manicured lawns of the resort, spacious rooms with air conditioning and clean pool seemed like luxuries reserved for celebrities. It was hard for me to believe that I could take a shower with hot water or even have an extra towel to use. Needless to say, Catherine, Katy, Michael and I were overcome with excitement at our living quarters. After settling in we reluctantly left the air conditioning and hung out poolside for a few hours. It felt great to swim in the “bath tub warm” pool water as my mother would refer to it, and to be able to walk on the beach without stepping on trash / feces. We spent the rest of the night enjoying various commodities at the resort, including the restaurant (they had mac n’ cheese and grilled cheese!!!).

The next morning we travelled to Kakum National Park to complete the canopy walk. The park was beautiful, covered in giant, ancient trees and teeming with the noises of various birds and insects. We hiked a few minutes to the beginning of the canopy walk. The canopy walk consisted of huge, swinging rope bridges suspended between huge poles over the canopy of trees. We were up so high and could see literally thousands of trees beneath us! Walking across the bridges was nerve racking, as we were literally only held up by rope, and also there was a large group of obese businessmen from South Africa shaking the bridges behind us with their weight.

On the taxi ride home from the canopy walk, I spotted a sign for an ostrich farm, and insisted to everyone that we pull over to check it out. We drove up to two pens filled with about twenty ostriches total. I’ve decided that ostriches are some of the strangest animals. We originally asked if we could ride the ostriches (apparently they ride / race them in AZ) but the owner of the farm said we would need to give him “small time to train them” before we could ride them. We instead grabbed leafy greens and fed the ostriches out of our hands. We were only separated by a small fence, and a few times I was pretty sure I was about to have my hand bitten. We took some pictures and the ostriches tried to eat Michael and I’s hair (I guess it looks like straw to them?).

When we returned to the resort, we went to check out the crocodile pond which was located about 30 yards away from the club house and contained by a holey wooden fence (so safe!). We tried to lure the crocs out with gifts of leftover chicken, but we only saw a few babies.

Later in the evening, Catherine and I watched the sun set on wooden swings situated just feet from the ocean. It was beautiful. I love the sky here. No matter what time of the day it is, the clouds and sky are a constant source of amazement for me. The clouds consistently look like giant tufts of cotton and almost close enough to touch.

Sunday morning we left early to tour the Elmina Castle, another point used to house slaves before they were loaded onto ships. The castle was similar to the Cape Coast Castle, with the addition of a “death room”, complete with skull and crossbones carved above the entrance way. The small cell was were slaves who were inciting rebellion / resisting were placed. The slaves were then left in the cell to slowly die without food or water. I can’t imagine the mindset of the European forces in charge of the castle. I suppose human rights abuses as horrible as this can never be justified or explained. It’s sometimes unbelievable what humans have been / are capable of. While we in retrospect claim that instances such as slavery and genocide will never happen again, I believe the banality of evil will always allow for normal humans to commit horrendous acts (look at Darfur!).

Another interesting point of our tour of Elmina Castle was a man from Pittsburg who was completing a return to Africa trip. After we heard the man’s story, I completely supported his cultural and spiritual journey back to the place his ancestors has been forcefully taken. However, during the tour of the castle he became increasingly rude. While touring a cell used to punish European soldiers, the man, once he heard it was for Europeans, muttered derogatory comments under his breathe, pushed past everyone in the group and the tour guide and ran out of the cell. Later, when Karen offered to take a picture of him with his camera, he told her rudely that she didn’t know him and that he wouldn’t allow her to take his picture. I’m not sure if this particular man was just naturally abrasive, but considering our surroundings, his actions came across with different implied meanings.

After touring the castle, we headed back to Legon. Along the way we saw a tro-tro stuck in one of the sewage ditches along the roads. Without tow trucks, I can only imagine how it will be removed.
Upon returning to our hostel, we learned we were again without water, but also this time without electricity. Wooo! I hadn’t even thought about this possibility. It was kind of fun using flashlights for a while, until we realized that no electricity = no fans. Boo. Luckily the electricity came back on the next day and hasn’t been off since then for more than a few hours at a time!

Anyway, sorry I’m behind on these entries. Lexi, one of my good friends from UNC came to visit on Thursday! I have things to report from this past weekend. I’ll try to do it before this weekend!!